GE 430 Geomorphology

1. GE 430 Geomorphology 2005 edition... The premier!

2. Goals: • To be THE BEST course in your college career • To create a tradition of excellence that will continue for many years • To explore regional geomorphology/understand geomorphic processes and READ the landscape • To build an ‘espirit de corps’ that will be the envy of everyone else on the UNA campus • “From this day to the ending of the world, we in it shall be remembered; we lucky few; we band of brothers...." -Henry V

3. The Plan.... • Explore the Southeastern United States, exploring as many different landscapes/landforms and geomorphic processes as possible in slightly less than two weeks. • $... The same for everyone $268 is the amount for everyone.

4. Academic Assignments.... • You will keep a daily field log describing where we have been and the more significant features/processes observed. • The field observations should be thorough, including lat/long from a GPS (or other descriptive information), sketches and diagrams, photographs etc. • These will be kept daily... Not put together after the trip is over based on what you remember.. When you get out of the rig, your notebook/camera is with you! • Each evening, I expect to see pencils on paper, maps being marked etc.

5. Site profile.... • You will be divided into groups • Each group will be responsible for creating a website that describes one of the sites we have visited • The web sites will present photographs of the site, you will scan or link to appropriate publications. Your work will be ‘the definitive answer’ for questions about the site. • Each group will be responsible for helping the professor (me) create successful links from a geomorphology class home page to your pages. • If you have not yet used ‘front page’ this will be your big chance!

6. Additional tasking... • I have been tasked with creating a slideshow of Alabama that will be cycling in the background of the reception for the National Council for Geographic Education (NCGE) meeting in Birmingham in October of 2005. • As at least some of our trip will be in Alabama (and places just over the border that LOOK like Alabama)... I’m going to ask for your BEST frames so I can add them to the slideshow.

7. Final Presentation... • In July, I will ask the group to come together for an evening at my home.... • We will look at the web site for each group and collectively make suggestions to make them ‘perfect’ • At this time I’d like to have individual slide shows available for viewing...and story telling etc. (I anticipate a month away from each other should be sufficient to make us want to be together again, at least for a couple of hours)

8. Day to day management... • MOST campgrounds will have showers... • As it looks like we will have multiple rigs... I request everyone switch/shuffle every day or two. The team is a unit, not little groups inside the unit. • Timelines... When it is time to roll, we need to roll... We are not going to be splitting up because people are sleeping late etc. This is not a military campaign, but neither is it an undisciplined ramble across the country. • Aquatic sampling... Fine, as long as it doesn’t interfere with the business of the class.

9. Management contd. • Smokers... Not in the van! • We reserve the right to splash you down with air freshener if you climb back on board with smoke clinging to your clothes • We reserve the right to toss individuals into a body of water who fail to take advantage of showers when available. • Be cautious of taco bell’s $.99 bean burritos and other such... We are living in close quarters!

10. Alcohol... • NONE in the vehicles! Ever, under no circumstances! • NONE till the work is done! • MODERATION... Act stupid, and you will find yourself sitting on a pile of your gear beside the road with your thumb out in the wind! (don’t test me... Remember my goals of this course, its hard to have this be THE BEST if I am dealing with stupidity, chemically induced or not!)

11. Camping... • Each student will provide their own gear** • ** If you do not have gear of your own, and cannot borrow or rent the gear, please visit with the instructor and we will try to make arrangements for you. • YOU WIL NEED: • Personal gear (soap,towel,toothbrush,sunglasses,etc.) • Sleeping Bag/Pad • Personal Tent (if you have one) • Rain Gear • Field Notebook • Camera (not required but highly recommended) • Insect repellent/sunscreen • flashlight • FOOD

12. FOOD... • you will be providing your own supplies. • We will have stoves and a limited suite of utensils for group use. • This is also the heavily settled east... its hard to get out of sight of some form of eating place.... do not plan on being able to stop all the time, but I am not adverse to occasionally stopping at ‘fast food’ places. • We will also plan on group ‘social eating’ events (e.g. Lamberts in Gulf Shores)

13. Forms...etc. • UNA Liability form • Rafting Liability Form • Stupidity is frowned upon. • First Aid will be applied by the instructor, or whoever is handy... Look around, do you want these people responsible for your care after an accident?... Be safe!

14. Logistics.... • Vehicles/people/gear • Radios • Maps/GPS • # of camping spots (usually limited to 8 people/site) • Resupply • laundry • Sharing gear • Stoves • Tents • Cooking supplies • Other?

15. Day by day... • Day 1. Monday 16 May Depart UNA ~0800 • drive to New Madrid Seismic zone/Reelfoot Lake (http://quake.ualr.edu/public/nmfz.htm). Observe landforms and surface features associated with neotectonic activity. • First ‘site’ to be profiled by a group • Drive across the upper end of the Mississippi Embayment to Johnson’s Shut Ins State Park in Missouri. (http://www.mostateparks.com/jshutins.htm). Wade in the creek, observe fluvial processes in igneous rocks. • Igneous rocks of the St. François Mountains are the second ‘site’

17. “...Waters of the Black River became confined, or "shut-in," to a narrow channel. Water-borne sand and gravel cut deeply into [extrusive] igneous rock , swirling, churning…carving potholes, chutes and spectacular canyonlike gorges....” ..”[A]t Elephant Rocks State Park. About 1.5 billion years ago, hot magma cooled forming coarsely crystalline red granite, which later weathered into huge, rounded boulders.”...

19. Day 2. Tuesday 17 May (longest driving day before the end of the trip) • Elephant Rocks SP Missouri, observe weathering patterns in igneous rocks. Cross the Mississippi Embayment, over “Crowley’s Ridge” (http://www.scsc.k12.ar.us/BorneC/newpage9.htm) arriving at the Tom Bevill visitors center on the Tennessee-Tombigee waterway, Pickensville AL. Observe and discuss fluvial processes in a constructed waterway.

21. Day 3. Wednesday 18 May • Drive across the piedmont/gulf coastal plain of Alabama to Gulf State park, Gulf Shores AL. Stop and explore the ‘Selma Chalks” as possible, and observe residual storm damage from Hurricane Ivan. • Night... camp Gulf State park (or other location to be determined)

23. Day 4. Thursday 19 May • Exploring the barrier islands morphology and change (and beach). Sediment transport, coastal damage from hurricane storm surge and winds. • This is terra incognita due to the damage from Ivan, and the fact that Alabama appears to be incapable of publishing solid information/maps of damage! • (dinner... Lamberts, we need a break from cooking for ourselves!)

24. Day 5, Friday 20 May (another long driving day) • Cross Gulf coastal plain, look for fossilized sharks teeth in the Coosa River? • Explore Wetumpka Impact structure (http://www.auburn.edu/academic/science_math/geology/docs/wetumpka/specific.htm) didn’t know we have a meteor crater in Alabama did you?! • DeSoto Falls State Park for the night....group camping in primitive sites, showers available.

25. Day 6 Saturday 21 May • the southern end of the Appalachian fold/thrust belt. Explore the rim of the Little River canyon, DeSoto Falls. Observe the impacts of fluvial processes in an active tectonic setting of regional diastrophism • Climb down into the Little River Canyon, swat mosquitoes/pick ticks. Examine erosional processes in the canyon. Explore cave formation and karst topography probably in “welsh caves”

27. Day 7 Sunday 22 May • Early departure! • Explore a classic ‘water gap’ of the Tennessee River from the top of Lookout Mountain above Chattanooga Tennessee. • Brief photo stop on I 75 observing deformed sedimentary strata. • Afternoon observation of hydraulic processes IN rubber rafts IN the Ocoee River (that would be whitewater rafting) • Shower after rafting! • Camp Cherokee National Forest Chilhowee C.G.

29. Day 8 Monday 23 May • Ducktown Basin Museum and Burra Burra mine site... the remnants of an environmental blight from mining/smelting copper ore. • Murphy NC, Chunky Gal Mountain gneiss. Mountain waters scenic byway • Serpentenite/olivine body (old oceanic crust) • Camp Kimsey Creek

31. Day 9 Tuesday 24 MayThe Southern Mountains • Short hikes to waterfalls • Waylah bald • A relaxation day... Still camped at Kimsey creek group camp.

33. Day 10 the Blue Ridge • Entering into the core of the southern Blue Ridge mountains • Camp at Linville Falls (no showers) • Short hikes observing the Grandfather Mountain erosional window

34. Day 11 The Grandfather Mountain Window, Linville Falls, Blowing Rock • Move across the mountain to the group camp at Roan Mountain State Park in Tennessee • Short hikes • Last night on the road • Field Notebook evaluation

36. Last day!Day 12 Friday 27 May • Leave Roan Mountain SP • Short side trip onto the Pine Mountain Overthrust • Knoxville TN-Florence AL.... 6 hours? • Clean out van • Pack up gear and go home • Sleep in your own bed • Next time? The redrock country of Utah?

38. Assignments? • Grades for the interterm need to be turned in at the end of the June term... • Your websites need to be posted before June 21... You will need to send me an email letting me know to look at the web site when you have your pages posted.